Archive for the ‘Indiana-built cars’ tag

Donald Davidson at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway in 2012. Photo by Chuck Carroll.

Donald Davidson has likely forgotten more facts about the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, and the events held there over the course of its 105-year history, than most have us have ever learned. As the Speedway’s official historian, it’s Davidson’s job to remember the smallest of details, and as the host of the radio broadcast (and now, podcast) “The Talk of Gasoline Alley,” he’s able to share this wealth of information with racing fans the world over. Next Tuesday, Davidson will play host to “An Evening with Donald Davidson,” in an event presented by Indiana Landmarks in support of the recently founded Indiana Automotive Historical Society (IAHS).

An affiliate group of Indiana Landmarks (which works to preserve architecturally unique and historically significant properties within the state), the IAHS was founded in 2013 to keep Indiana’s rich automotive and racing heritage alive for future generations. In addition to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, the state has also served as home to manufacturers like Auburn, Cord and Duesenberg; Marmon; Stutz; Mercer; National; Studebaker; Cole; and hundreds others.

One of the IAHS’s first undertakings was the restoration of the Duesenberg Motors Co. sign (a project funded by Indiana Landmarks) on the company’s former final assembly building, now home to public transportation company IndyGo. Fittingly, the cover photo on the group’s Facebook page is an image of this recently restored sign.

During next Tuesday’s presentation, the IAHS will also discuss upcoming events planned for the remainder of 2014. The society welcomes anyone with an interest in the preservation of Indiana’s early automotive history to attend.

An Evening with Donald Davidson will be held at the Indiana Landmarks Center in Indianapolis on Tuesday, March 11. For details, or to RSVP, visit DavidsonStories.Eventbrite.com.

It’s been called “The Single Most Beautiful American Car” by Forbes American Heritage magazine, and it has been driven on three continents. Now, the 1936 Cord 810 Westchester sedan once owned by noted Cord expert Josh B. Malks will head to a new home at the Auburn Cord Duesenberg Automobile Museum, where Moonshadow can be appreciated by generations of enthusiasts to come.

Moonshadow, Malks’s name for the Cadet Grey Cord, was hardly his first experience with the brand. As an early member of the Auburn-Cord-Duesenberg Club, Malks owned a total of five Cords throughout his life, all 810 Westchester sedans. On the CordNet website that he once maintained, Malks admitted that between 1953 and 1959, Cords were his only transportation, but none proved as endearing as Moonshadow, which Malks himself described as “a keeper.” Malks died of cancer last October, prompting his widow Betty to donate his much-beloved Cord to the ACDA Museum in January of 2014.

Moonshadow, bearing chassis number 2087A, was acquired by Malks in 1984 with a mere 51,000 miles on the odometer. By the end of the century, Malks had run it up to more than 100,000 miles, and his last reported figure stood at a little more than 115,000 miles. Under his ownership, Malks had driven the Cord almost the entire length of Route 66, much of the Lincoln Highway (used for long-distance testing of the original Cord prototype sedan) and on numerous cross-country trips to the annual Auburn-Cord-Duesenberg Reunion. Moonshadow’s grandest endeavor, however, came in 1998, when Malks shipped the car to London, England, to participate in the Jewish National Fund Rally, a seven-nation tour through Europe and the Middle East that ended in Jerusalem.

Under Malks’s ownership, the Cord was repainted (for the second time since leaving the factory) in 2000, in time to serve as a limousine for his daughter’s wedding. Much of its blue English broadcloth interior is original, but by 2005 the front seats and three of the four original door panels had begun to show their age, requiring replacement. Perhaps its sole concession to the advance of time was the fitting of modern radial tires.

In addition to his contribution to the brand as the long-time editor of the Auburn-Cord-Duesenberg Club newsletter, Malks was the author of Cord Complete and Cord 810/812: The Timeless Classic, as well as numerous books on owning and maintaining classic cars. Moonshadow serves as a fitting tribute to his knowledge and passion, proof that even seven-plus-decade-old cars can be used and enjoyed in the modern world.

The Auburn Cord Duesenberg Automobile Museum is located in Auburn, Indiana. For more information, visit AutomobileMuseum.org.

Update (21.February): A second Cord 810 Westchester sedan, also a 1936 model, has been donated to the Auburn Cord Duesenberg Automobile Museum. Previously owned by Kimber J. Heddens of Evansville, Indiana, the black with tan fabric interior sedan has been owned by Heddens since 1957, and the faithfully restored Cord has been a frequent sight at both regional and national Auburn Cord Duesenberg Club events.

Anytime you see the GT badge – however the various manufacturers choose to spell, abbreviate, or append to it – applied to a car, you should expect to be able to jump right in and drive that car along your favorite scenic byways. That appears to be the case with this 1963 Studebaker Gran Turismo Hawk, kept in road-ready condition and carefully upgraded to make the drive more comfortable. From the seller’s description:

A non rusted original with rebuilt engine, rebuilt transmission, rebuilt carburetor, air conditioning added, AM/FM CD added, original interior, new $6,000 paint job, mostly new rubber, and refurbed suspension.The last owner paid $10,000 for this non-rusted Studebaker, and since then there has been an additional $30,000 spent on rebuilding and repainting this car. This is a well sorted car, as it runs very well. The automatic transmission works incredibly well and the power steering makes it a dream to drive. The original factory installed disc brakes bring it to a quick halt. Everything works and works well. The 289 V8 engine with a 2 barrel carburetor gives good performance, but does not guzzle gas. In town or on a long trip, the Hawk is ready to go.

Though it looked fairly modern, thanks to Raymond Loewy styling, the 1940 Studebaker Commander still used a flathead six-cylinder drivetrain that dated back to the company’s short-lived Rockne companion car, though one updated over the years – as much as one could update a flathead six, that is. Arch Brown drove a Commander coupe for SIA #157, January 1997, and found it a solid, though slow, experience.

Transportation was part of the DNA of Connersville, Indiana, long before the automobile was ever conceived. Beginning in the 1830s, it was a port along the Whitewater Canal, which ran 76 miles from the Ohio River to Hagerstown, Indiana, incorporating 56 locks along the way. From the 1860s forward, the White Water Valley Railroad operated atop the canal’s disused towpath. So maybe it was inevitable that this charming city became known as “Indiana’s Little Detroit.”

As Connersville marked its bicentennial at the end of June, the city took time to reflect on the enormous role that relatively small Connersville (current population, a little over 13,000) had in the American auto industry. The automotive era of Connersville dates to 1909, when the incredibly luxurious McFarlan first went into production. The following year, Lexington moved to Connersville from its namesake city in Kentucky. Next came Empire, which built the Little Aristocrat. After Lexington folded in 1926, Erret Lobban Cord moved Auburn production to a factory complex known as Auburn Central. The “Baby Duesenberg” designed in Connersville eventually became the Cord 810 and 812. Connersville also was home to suppliers, including Central Manufacturing, which made bodywork for the 1940 Packard Darrin, along with some 500,000 Jeep bodies during World War II. Stant remains active with a major Connersville plant to this day.

Connersville automotive historian Richard Stanley provided Hemmings with these Rick Lemen photos of some great Indiana cars that showed up at the bicentennial. A 1923 Lexington roadster was transported 1,500 miles for the show. Among the other significant cars were a 1927 Duesenberg boattail roadster with McFarlan bodywork, plus a Jeep and a Gardiner roadster, both bodied by Central Manufacturing. A host of Auburns also attended.

A team of Indiana college students are going farther than most of their peers to understand our automotive past.

Twenty-six Thirteen undergraduate students at Ball State University in Muncie – a town with a terrific automotive heritage in its own right – are doing the legwork to produce a video documentary on the people and cars of Auburn, Indiana. The project members started out late last month at Auburn’s garage tour, during which local car enthusiasts invited visitors to examine their collector cars at home. The photo shows the students examining a 1935 Auburn Speedster, but Auburn being Auburn, there will be a strong showing by Duesenberg and Cord, too. The project, directed by Ball State assistant technology professor Hans Kellogg, will have the students profiling 38 vintage cars from Auburn to Jackson, Michigan, plus events along the way.

“Beginning with the inception of the Duesenberg sports car, to the subtle elegance of the Auburn automobile and innovative engineering of the Cord, the community of Auburn has held a special place in America’s automotive past,” Kellogg said. “The goal for these students will be to create a feature-length documentary film exploring the heart and soul of these three distinct automobiles. Together, each line portrays a subtle blend of Indiana’s past, its people and its machines, its technology and the drive of the industrialist E.L. Cord, who saw opportunity where others viewed insolvency. It is a rich past that will provide an extraordinary immersive experience as students explore the story surrounding these three motorcars.”

Kellogg and the students, gathered from a variety of majors at the college, will work on the film for the Virginia Ball Center for Creative Inquiry. They expect to finish the film by the end of the current semester.

Known since its inception as the Krasl Art Center Concours d’Elegance, the eighth annual edition of the show in St. Joseph, Michigan, will go by a new name – the Concours d’Elegance of Southwest Michigan – and will feature an exceedingly rare example of William Bushnell Stout’s Scarab as well as a class dedicated to automobiles built in Indiana.

The Scarab is often described as the first minivan, and Stout envisioned it as the future of the automobile. It incorporated not just a rear-engine drivetrain (using an off-the-shelf Ford flathead V-8), aerodynamic shape, and independent suspension all around – common attributes for many cars of the future in the 1930s – but also a tubular space frame borrowed from his experience engineering airplanes, which helped him create his vision of a simple, practical and comfortable automobile. After building the first prototype Scarab in 1932, he then built a number of “production” Scarabs (most sources put the number at nine) in 1935-1936; but at a price of $5,000, even Stout’s modest production plans of 100 per year proved overly ambitious. The Scarab that will appear at the Concours d’Elegance of Southwest Michigan belongs to Milwaukee-area resident Ron Schneider, who not only restored it but also drove it in the Great Race during the 1980s.

The name change for the concours this year should highlight the fact that it takes place closer to some of the automotive towns of northern Indiana than to the traditional automotive hub of Detroit; so accordingly, the concours will feature cars built in the Hoosier State. “There were at least 198 different Indiana-built automobiles produced in 42 cities and towns back in those days,” according to Dar Davis, founder of the concours. “People will recognize such names as Studebaker, Duesenberg, Cord, Stutz and Marmon, but that’s just scratching the surface. Also, some of the most gorgeous cars of the day were built in Indiana, and we hope to have some stunning examples on hand for the 2012 Concours d’Elegance.” Two examples of cars in the Indiana-built class include the 1937 Cord 812 Beverly sedan owned by Howard E. Payne of Northville, Michigan; and the 1919 Haynes 45 Light Six touring owned by Bill and Cheryl Haynes of Batavia, Illinois.

The Concours d’Elegance of Southwest Michigan will take place on Saturday, August 4. Admission is $5 per person or $10 per family. For more information, visit the concours on Facebook.

Editor’s Note: Before our sharp-eyed readers point it out, the lead photo is of Larry Smith’s Stout Scarab, not Ron Schneider’s. However, Mark’s photo was just too good to pass up. Schneider’s Scarab can be seen in Special Interest Autos issue #123.

With the nation’s eyes turned toward Indianapolis this month for the centennial of the Indy 500, it’s also worth pointing out that the state of Indiana at one point rivaled Michigan as the largest state in the nascent automotive industry. Companies like Stutz, Cord, Auburn, Duesenberg, Haynes, Marmon and Studebaker all called the Hoosier State home – enough marques to fill an entire book – and the Classic Car Club of America intends to pay tribute to them all next month by inviting any Indiana-built car to its CCCA Museum Experience.

The CCCA Museum Experience, scheduled for June 3-5 on the grounds of the Gilmore Car Museum in Hickory Corners, Michigan, will welcome both Full Classic and non-Classic Indiana-built cars as well as the stately Full Classics from other states and countries that we’ve come to expect from a CCCA event. The weekend’s schedule will include a barbecue on the museum grounds Friday evening, followed by a driving tour, automotive flea market, automotive fine art show, and car corral on Saturday, then a judged car show on Sunday.

“For CCCA members who have not visited the CCCA Museum and Library recently, this is a good year to do so,” said Walter Blenko, CCCA Museum president. “There is really nothing else like it in the world and this is the only museum devoted solely to Classic automobiles.”